New research into Yucatan whale shark movements

Robert Hueter, a marine biologist at Mote Marine Laboratory in Sarasota, Florida, has published a paper in the PLoS ONE journal describing the movements of the whale sharks (Rhincodon typus) that aggregate around the Yucatan Peninsula off Mexico. He used visual, SPOT and PSAT tagging methods as well as photo identification to study where the fish come from and go to. The results suggest that the sharks disperse through the Gulf of Mexico, Caribbean, into the waters around Cuba and one individual travelled 7,772 km through the Caribbean Sea and into the mid-Atlantic Ocean south of the equator.